Noel Gallagher hits number one, announces arena dates

Former Oasis main man Noel Gallagher hit number one this past week with his debut solo release, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds. The album moved some 122,530 copies in the UK, an impressive amount, more than doubling what his brother Liam sold last February with his band Beady Eye's offering, Different Gear, Still Speeding.

In MusicRadar's track-by-track review of High Flying Birds, we said that "the 10 songs on Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds rank as the best set of material the singer-songwriter and guitarist has assembled...As it is with the best of composers, the emotional buttons - desperate, angry, joyful, melancholy and everything else - are right there in plain sight....."

With a number one smash under his belt, Noel Gallagher has just announced a new string of dates for next year. This follows the UK and US dates he's already playing. The new dates go on sale this Friday right here.